One of my favorite storytime themes is Valentine’s Day because it is a way to share stories about love with children. I use popular favorites that we keep in our librarian’s collection along with new books to keep things interesting and fun. We dance to music, do finger plays and I share Ipad apps with each class along with reading stories. At the end of every class we read a book from the website We Give Books. The children enjoy seeing the books up on the big screen via our projector. We count the images, identify colors and the older ones love to go up and point things out to the class. The following are books and apps I recommend for Valentine storytimes.
12 to 24 months
Maisy Loves You by Lucy Cousins
My Little Valentine by Carol Roth
Baby Max and Ruby: Love by Rosemary Wells
Spot Loves His Daddy by Eric Hill
They are a special crowd who need quick stories with lots of music and movement to keep their attention. Board books are perfect for this age along with short picture books that have a few words on each page. I read two books to this group one in the beginning of class after a few songs and one at the end. The app I like for this class is Flannel Animals.
2 and 3 year olds
A Splendid Friend Indeed by Suzanne Bloom
Llama Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney
The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? By Mo Willems
Biscuit’s Valentine’s Day by Alyssa Capucilli
These children are very excited about being with other children. They love the bells and egg shakers used along with the music and movement. The app I use for this class is I Can Hear Ewe. It is fun to see how many toddlers start out glued to their caregiver, but by the end they are up front and involved with the stories and the action. I move up to using three books for this class. These children are starting to have a longer attention span therefore simple rhyming; animal noises and funny books are interesting to them.
3 1/2, 4 and 5 year olds
Who is Your Favorite Monster Mama? by Barbara Shook Hazen
Froggy’s First Kiss by Jonathan London
A Giant Crush by Melissa Sweet
Too Small for Honey Cake by Gillian Lobel
This group is my favorite because they really listen to all three stories. They participate and have wonderful questions and great answers to mine! The parachute games and hokey pokey keep the energy high. The apps I use with them are Make a Scene Polar Adventure and Make a Scene Farm Adventure.
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Our guest blogger today is Shelley Black Holley, M.L.S. Shelley has worked in library services since 2001. She has been a Children’s Librarian for six years at Southington Library in Southington, Connecticut. Her blog is http://shellibrary.wordpress.com/
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.